My response to ‘Remember the Sabbath by Richard Rives’

As we shall see… Only Theonomists & ‘SDA’ followers are so adamant about keeping Ten out of 613 Jewish Commandments.

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“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.”

“We observe that in the book of John, Jesus tells us that in order to bear fruit we must abide in him. He goes on to tell us that the way we abide in him is to keep His commandments. The instruction to keep the sabbath day holy is one of those commandments.”

“The Sabbath described in Genesis 2 is definitely the seventh day, Saturday, and not the first day, Sunday.”

“There is no way to avoid this truth.”

“The fourth commandment was established at the creation of the world and later reconfirmed to Moses in the wilderness by Jesus.”

“The Sabbath was very important to people of the Bible and even though calendars may have changed, it would be inconceivable for the Sabbath day to have been confused with any other day. Chronologist are in agreement that the order of days is the same today as at the beginning of history. In addition, Jesus recognized the Sabbath and would have certainly known which day He had commanded to be kept holy.”

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Let’s break this down:

1 Rives & his ‘sda’ or fellow theonomist ‘1st century christians’ want fellow believers to be under the torah as if we are to be Jewish like ‘them’. So of course they want to begin their doctrines with Exodus 20:8-11. Of course that is part of the Law of Moses and as we shall see it is Jesus whom we follow not Moses.

Did Jesus Command the Sabbath and the rest of the Jewish laws for the gentile? Scripture doesn’t say. So the above statements by Rives is merely philosophy he copied from being around his SDA buddy or other sources.

A prime example of this theonomist philosophy is shown here:

“There is absolutely no scriptural evidence that the weekly seventh day sabbath has been set aside. At the beginning of the world God proclaimed the Sabbath to be a special time. Genesis says that He hallowed it (made it holy).”

“Jesus said: “Till heaven and earth pass.”

“Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.”

“So what can we definitely say about the Sabbath? “

“The Sabbath is to be a sign between God and his people so that they will know that he is the god that sanctifies them.”

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Where does scripture indicate that Sabbath was changed?

Lets list a few changes that Rives and his ‘SDA’ followers neglect:

Acts 15:1-30

Galatians 5:13-15

And lets not forget which Commandments from Moses Jesus thought were most important.

Matthew 22:36-40

Mark 12:29-31

Luke 10:25-28

This means of course that in keeping Sabbath and placing unwarranted claims upon it they are not follow Jesus commandments but his traditions. Who changed Sabbath? It was not God but his followers and these changes seemingly to have been Blessed by him. It starts in Acts 15, Romans and so forth and yet because Rives and his followers are unwilling to accept that they put upon themselves Commandments that Jesus did not direct them to burden themselves with.

I suppose there are those who would say that Saturday Sabbath in regards to the Law of Moses were never changed. In that case they are correct God did not change his laws instead urged his followers the people of Moses to keep all 613 Commandments not merely the Ten.

What Rives and his ‘SDA’ readership have done is that they have taken Gods law for the Jews and tried to make something for themselves out of a Covenant that was not meant for them.

In the last sections of his monologue Rives discuss Christian history. In doing so he ignores much of Christian history that includes those who kept Sunday.

That is just a handful of Christian articles about how we Christians came to regard Sunday as our worship day.

Rives and those who follow after his precepts can indeed keep Saturday Sabbath but they should remember that it is a day set aside by God to separate the Jew from the gentile. In forgetting that and attempting to place themselves under the Jewish covenant they endanger their Gentile covenant. If they also add more to the Sabbath than God intended then they have placed their spiritual welfare under mans teachings and not Gods.